Special Effects
by Prioris
Summary: Yet another series of one-shots and drabbles from the Mass Effect universe. Mostly comedy, but later chapters may include romance and/or drama.
1. Pick Your Poison

Special Effects  
a series of Mass Effect fan fiction shorts

Disclaimer: The characters, events and settings of the Mass Effect game series belong to EA and Bioware. I don't own them, nor am I profiting from this venture. Attack lawyers may be checked at the bar; they'll be returned when you leave...

* * *

1. Pick Your Poison

_In which Ashley develops cabin fever and takes Liara for a walk on the wild side._

* * *

"Oh, by the Goddess, I have never seen anything so ridiculous in my life!"

Liara T'Soni threw her hands in the air, causing a pile of OSDs to slide off her desk and scatter across the floor. The asari scientist had spent the last week in writing a technical analysis of the miniaturized mass relay known as the Conduit, and on the surface the project shouldn't have cost her more than a few days of work. However, since she had been personally unable to capture any data on the device, having been preoccupied with trying to survive a geth armada at the time, her research materials were limited to the paltry few optical disks she'd been able to retrieve from the Vigil system before its collapse - and therein lay the problem. With a frustrated sigh, she returned to the reference stacks, wondering how the Protheans had ever risen to such heights of civilization using a 'language' that resembled the freak offspring of a gyroscope and a Boris Vallejo painting.

Ten minutes later, once again absorbed in her work, she almost didn't hear the door hiss open. "Yo."

"Hello, Chief," Liara said, manufacturing as calm a face as she could before turning toward the human woman in the passageway. During their shipboard confinement in the aftermath of Ilos and the Citadel, she and Ashley Williams had become fairly close friends, to the point where Ashley had appointed herself as Liara's unofficial big sister, notwithstanding the eighty-year age difference between them. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"Hey, none of that Chief stuff, I'm off duty," Ashley said with a grin, thumbs hooked in her pockets. "Anyway, just thought I'd stop by, see what you were doin'. Got any hot plans tonight?"

"Unfortunately, J-- ahem." Liara didn't quite catch her slip of the tongue in time, earning a knowing snicker from the Marine. "The command crew are still occupied with the debriefings from the Sovereign Incident. Since they already have my testimony, I am writing a paper on the Conduit for one of the larger archaeological journals. In truth, it has been slow going. Decoding Vigil's specifications from the original language is more difficult that I anticipated, even with the Cipher's assistance."

"In other words, egghead stuff." With a smile, Ashley continued, "Put your ciphers away and come ashore with me for a while. You know what they say 'bout all work and no play..."

The asari scientist smiled uncertainly at the invitation. "That's kind of you to offer, Ashley, but I'm really quite happy to stay here and work. Besides, I fear I would be poor company. I still understand very little of human interactions."

"So you're not gonna learn better by sittin' alone in your cubicle," the other woman shot back. "C'mon, Li, we're gettin' the hell off this tin can. Have some chow, a couple drinks, a little fun. I'll be damned if I'm gonna waste a perfectly good shore leave on garrison crap, and I'd be the galaxy's worst excuse for a friend if I left you here to futz with your paper all night."

"But my work on the Conduit--"

"Can wait," Ashley interrupted, hauling the asari to her feet and propelling her toward the closet. "Go put some civvies on. We are gonna put your blue booty on the floor tonight, girl."

Liara wasn't entirely sure what a booty was or why it belonged on the floor, but she knew better than to argue with the other woman. "As you wish."

Twenty minutes later, the music pounded and swirled around them as they walked through the doors of Flux. It wasn't her first visit, of course, but she had never grown accustomed to the acoustic assault and doubted that she ever would. After their first trip, when she had stumbled out of the nightclub with ringing ears and a raging migraine, Shepard had allowed her to stay in the corridor for future visits – ostensibly as a rear guard, but the softness in the Spectre's eyes had belied her brusque tone.

"I'm buying, so pick your poison," Ashley said as they approached the bar.

Liara looked faintly alarmed at the Marine's comment. "Does this establishment poison its customers as well as deafen them?"

"What?" Ashley blinked, and then began to laugh. "Sorry 'bout that. It's a human idiom – it means you should choose what you'd like to drink."

"Oh, I see." This, at least, she could handle. "I would like a glass of ice water, please."

Ashley nearly choked at Liara's request. "_Ice water?!_ For God's sake, Liara, take a walk on the wild side, will ya? At least get something that's got a little kick to it."

"But I wouldn't know which of the 'poisons,' as you called them, to order," Liara replied, a rather discomfited expression on her face. "I do not drink, nor do I frequent bars. Most asari establishments would not serve me, anyway."

"Oh. _Oh._" Ashley's ears burned as she realized her gaffe. It was all too easy to forget that by her species' standards, the scientist was still little more than a teenager. "Look, I'm sorry. This was probably a bad idea. We can go back to the ship--"

"It's all right, Ashley. You haven't offended me. In any case, this is not an asari bar." A roguish twinkle danced in Liara's eyes, as a small smile played about the corners of her mouth. Ashley recognized it as the same look Commander Shepard got when she was planning something unorthodox. "Why don't you pick something that you think I would like?"

A grin broke across the Marine's face. "There's hope for you yet, Li. Be back in two seconds."

By Liara's reckoning, Ashley did not return for two hundred and fifty-three seconds, but she didn't begrudge her the appallingly inaccurate estimate. "What does this beverage contain?" she asked curiously, taking the proffered glass from Ashley's hand. Colorless and faintly effervescent, the drink smelled strongly of raw ethanol, with a small wedge of citrus fruit precariously dangling from the rim.

"Vodka n' tonic. Something my dad always taught me: stay the hell away from girlie drinks. They taste good goin' down, but the sugar crash after'll give you the worst hangover of your life."

"Then I shall endeavor to avoid them." Liara grimaced briefly as she sipped at the cocktail, feeling the liquor burn its way down her throat. "Ashley, are you sure this is safe to drink? It tastes like something Garrus would use to degrease the Mako's drivetrain."

"It is. Or at least, that's what Lieutenant Adams'll tell you if you ask why there's a still hooked up to the drive core's coolant return loop."

"But is it not against regulations to consume alcohol aboard an Alliance ship?" Liara asked, cocking her head to one side. The vodka's initial burn had turned into a pleasant warmth in her stomach, and she drank a bit more, noticing that the unpleasant taste dissipated rapidly with repeated consumption.

"Technically yeah," Ashley replied, slugging back a healthy dose of her own drink, "but Commander Shepard doesn't sweat the small stuff. Long as you don't show up unfit for duty or start screwin' up your job, she looks the other way. Even had a shot herself on Armistice Day."

"Interesting. I wonder if she learned that attitude from the turians or reached it herself." Curiously, she noted that the music had also diminished somewhat in volume, and the strobe lights of the dance floor no longer dazzled her eyes. "Since we have both finished our drinks, does this end the evening's outing?"

"Hell, no, it means you have another!"

Three drinks later, Liara had fully embraced eternity, the universe and every living thing in it. Lost in the gyration of the dance floor, absorbing the throb of the music, she reflected on the wonders of civilization that would create such amazing things as nightclubs and vodka tonics, and wondered how she had ever lived without.

"Hey, babe," someone rumbled behind her. "Wanna get out of this joint?"

"Huh?" Liara replied, confused. "But why would I want to leave, when I'm having so much fun here?"

The would-be Lothario, a massive - and massively intoxicated - krogan, replied in what was meant to be a seductive whisper but came out sounding like unoiled machinery, "Oh, I can supply the fun, babe, trust me."

Alarm bells began ringing in some distant part of the asari's mind. The krogan's words sounded suspiciously like something Ashley had once called a 'cheap pickup line.' She wasn't quite sure what the line was meant to pick up, but the human woman had been quite clear on the proper response to one. "Are you... proposing a joining?"

"If that's what they're calling it these days," the krogan laughed.

Flailing for a coherent reply, Liara managed to blurt out, "But I already have a mate."

"So bring them along. There's enough of me to go around, heh, heh."

"Hey, she's with me, pal," Ashley interrupted, reappearing from the bar and smoothly interposing herself between Liara and the krogan. The friendly light had fled her eyes, and her grin bore a frightening resemblance to that of a shark. "So why don't you shove off?"

The krogan turned a watery crimson glare on her. "You don't tell me when to shove off."

"Except when you're messin' with my friend, yeah, I do," the Marine shot back. Under her breath, she continued, "Liara, get the hell outta here, right now, 'cause this dude's gonna throw some ugly."

"Decorated warrior, I am," the krogan slurred. "I won't be talked to like that, not by human trash like you."

"Trash _this,_" Ashley snapped, grabbing the interloper's arm and neatly flipping him over her shoulder. He landed in the middle of the floor with a crash, his two-hundred-kilo bulk sending several patrons sprawling. With a roar, he staggered to his feet, and the brawl was on.

From her vantage point behind a table, Liara watched the fight with fascination. The brawlers seemed to be moving in slow motion, accentuated by the flickering of the disco lights. Ashley rolled under a wildly thrown haymaker, causing the krogan to cold-cock a turian who'd tried to sneak up behind her. The krogan, already off-balance from the partially missed punch, skidded on a patch of spilled beer and slammed head-first into the bar, assisted by a judiciously timed biotic throw.

"Nice shot, Li!" Ashley yelled, dealing a roundhouse kick to another human assailant.

"This is amazing!" the asari yelled back, a goofy grin plastered across her face. "I can think about people falling down, and they fall down! How do I do that?"

"_C-Sec Patrol! Hold it right there!"_

Bright lights, far more blinding than the strobes could hope to be, stabbed into their eyes as armored police flooded into the nightclub, and the two women looked at each other with dismay.

"Uh-oh."

* * *

"Well, this could start to suck," Ashley mused to herself, staring at the ceiling. "Stuck in C-Sec lockup with a dead-drunk asari. _Not _what I had in mind for a fun shore leave."

They'd been summarily tossed into a holding cell, barely more than three meters square, equipped with a rudimentary sanitary facility and a hard metal bunk. It was upon that bunk that Ashley sprawled, while Liara huddled in a boneless heap in the corner, not having budged from where the C-Sec patrolman had dropped her. The combination of biotic fatigue and acute alcohol intoxication had rendered her practically unconscious, her stupor broken only by an occasional sigh or snuffle.

Boots clumped down the corridor, and another officer appeared in the doorway. "On your feet, girls. Visitor for you. A shepherd-something or other..."

"Wake up, Li," Ashley said quietly, reaching over to shake the asari awake. "Boss lady on deck."

"There are a few different ways to address one's CO, but I don't think 'boss lady' is one of them." Commander Shepard stood outside their cell, arms folded across her chest, surveying them with equal parts affection and annoyance.

"Hi, Jane," Liara said in a wavering voice, blinking owlishly as she tried to focus on the Spectre. Ashley shrugged, a _what can you do_ gesture. "Sorry, ma'am, she's still a little out of it."

"This I can see," Shepard replied dryly. "What in all the hells did you two get into?"

"Chief Williams took me for a walk on the wild side," Liara said.

"We went to Flux for a girl's night. You know, a couple drinks, a little dancing. Some krogan boozehound got a little fresh with Liara," Ashley added. "I didn't quite finish straightening him out before the shore patrol arrived."

"So let me make sure I have this straight, Chief," Shepard replied sharply, beginning to tick off the points on her fingers. "You took an underage member of my crew to a nightclub, got her wasted out of her mind, put her at risk of being mugged or molested or worse, started a bar fight to defend her honor, and that's why I'm bailing both your butts out of the drunk tank at 0230? Not to mention the repair bill Doran just sent me?"

"Uh, yeah, that's 'bout it, ma'am," Ashley said, a sheepish expression on her broad face. Liara folded in on herself even further, pulling her knees to her chest and burying her head between them. "It's just as much my fault as anyone's," she whispered, not meeting the commander's eyes. "No one forced me to go out, nor to overindulge. Chief Williams should not suffer the blame for my foolishness."

"Oh, rest assured, she won't." With a long-suffering sigh, Shepard waved a lock token at the cell door, causing it to slide open. "In any case, it's neither here nor there now. I convinced C-Sec to drop all the charges_._ We're all going back to the _Normandy,_ and you two are going to spend the next 48 hours contemplating your sins while you clean the ship. Understood?"

Ashley swallowed hard at the prospect of losing her precious shore leave to the same 'garrison crap' she'd tried so hard to escape in the first place, but in the end, she just nodded in reply. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Come on, we're going." The commander stepped forward, ushering Ashley out of the cell and lifting Liara to her feet. "Oh, and one other thing..."

"Wazzat?"

Shepard flashed that dangerous grin. "Next time, I'm coming with you."

* * *

Author's Notes: Wow, Liara's really a lightweight, isn't she?

The Ashley/Liara friendship doesn't show up often in fan work, but to me, this pairing just oozes odd-couple comedy. Expect more of these two in the future.


	2. Voices Carry

2. Voices Carry

_In which a member of the Normandy's crew overhears Shepard's recreational activities._

* * *

_Ah, the perfect afternoon off,_ Wrex thought happily as he leaned back precariously in the flimsy chair, surrounded by half a dozen emptied plates. The _Normandy's_ mess hall was deserted, the rest of the crew either ashore or engaged in their own shipboard pursuits.

Letting out a satisfied belch, he stood and cleared the table, dropping the tray in the recycler and heading for his sleeper pod. _A little lunch, a little rack time, and--_

"Nnngh..."

_--What the hell?_

Wrex paused in the corridor, as a strange sound caught his attention. A moment later, there it was again: a woman's low, strangled moan, clearly originating from Commander Shepard's quarters.

Aboard a ship as small as the _Normandy,_ secrets simply didn't exist; it was literally impossible to live scales by jowl with two dozen people for weeks at a time and not learn every last detail of their lives. As a result, the continued morale of the crew largely depended on a tacitly understood system of discretion and feigned ignorance, and nowhere more so than in matters of romance. Everyone knew exactly who had paired up with whom, sometimes even before the couples themselves did, but they all went to great pains to pretend otherwise. Judging by the noise coming from Shepard's cabin, though, at least one such metaphorical fig leaf would be flying out the airlock shortly. Wrex had heard just about the entire repertory of sentient species' grunts, groans and screams over his years of mercenary employment, and at least in humans, only one activity caused that particular sound.

The krogan grinned to himself, leaning in to listen further. Of course, he wouldn't dare tease Shepard about her sex life directly - that was just suicide - but that didn't mean he couldn't pass some of the juicier tidbits around the lower decks. It would certainly put a cork in Garrus' mandibles for a few days, and if Wrex loved anything more than food or fighting, it was tweaking that stuffed-suit turian.

"Unnh... AHH!" A rhythmic thumping accompanied the cries this time, and Wrex felt the blood pounding in his head, not to mention a few other locations. Furtively he glanced around, assuring himself of solitude. _Damn, the whole Citadel is going to hear them at this rate,_ he thought.

A disturbing thought occurred to him just then, as the noise continued to increase in volume and pitch. According to the _Normandy's_ logs, the science team was supposed to be at a conference in the Presidium until much later that evening. Had she sneaked back to the ship for a quick interlude, or was Shepard... _No. Not a chance in hell. Shepard is the most honorable person I know. No way would she cheat. I don't think she would know how._

And yet, what if she had decided to pursue an affair? It was unthinkable. It flew in the face of everything they knew about their commander. It would be the biggest shipboard scandal since Joker got hold of that "Quarians Gone Wild" disc and they all discovered exactly what Tali looked like without her environmental gear.

Wrex fidgeted nervously beside the door, his mind racing. Suddenly, his decision to eavesdrop seemed like the height of folly. _Should I go in there, or not?_

"Ahh... ohh... aggh... AIIIEEEE!"

_All right, that does it._

Bursting through the door, Wrex skidded into the room, and his jaw dropped in astonishment at what he saw there.

Commander Shepard stood alone in front of her desk, completely clothed, nary a hair out of place. With a disgusted expression, she tossed a small hand-held control device in front of her computer monitor, which displayed the legend GAME OVER atop a lurid red blob on a cyan background. "Honestly, that has got to be the dumbest damned game," she grumbled. "Realistic space combat, my ass – what kind of idiot runs around in a fluorescent orange hardsuit?"

"Commander, I'm, um, sorry to intrude," Wrex choked through a mouth gone completely dry. Visions of slow, painful death flashed before his eyes. "I, uh, I thought I heard someone... uh, in distress."

"Oh, sorry about that," Shepard replied. "It's just this game I was playing. The main character yells when she gets shot at. Not that she doesn't deserve it, the airhead - if she'd take cover for two seconds instead of standing there like a bullet magnet..."

* * *

Author's Note: Ah, the voice actor joke, the great staple of hack fan comedians everywhere. Jennifer Hale, who voices the female Shepard, also provided the distress calls in the _Metroid Prime_ series. Especially in _MP3: Corruption_, a few of Samus' cries could easily be misinterpreted as something other than pain (!), which inspired this short.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed, particularly Nizumee, whose suggestion of a Garrus-centric plot will appear in the next chapter.


	3. Pimp My Ride

3. Pimp My Ride

_In which Garrus takes up vehicle customization for fun and morale improvement._

* * *

"And finally, a little bird in Requisitions tells me there's a new shipment of rifles headed our way. Prototype stuff HK Shadow Works wants us to test," Ashley said, as the _Normandy's_ senior crew sat in the communications center. "Supposedly they're the greatest thing since mass acceleration. Should be gettin' here next week or so."

"Good. We'll be sure to put them through their paces," Shepard replied. "If we're done with business - anyone? Then it's open floor. Questions, comments, concerns, lay them on me." The tradition of holding a rank-free bull session at the end of each team briefing was a tactic she'd inherited from Captain Anderson, a way of keeping tabs on her senior team members' conditions without the constraints of military courtesy or cross-species diplomacy.

"I am a little concerned that we are starting to develop a morale problem," Liara said. "Lately I have noticed that each species appears to be isolating itself from the others. The human lower ranks have always maintained their own clique, but the trend appears to be spreading into this team as well."

"I've seen it too," Ashley added. "I know Li here still hangs with us, but I think the only others are Lieutenant Adams and Tali."

Wrex snorted at that. "She's still around? I thought she might've fallen into the drive core."

Liara shot the krogan mercenary a glare. "As I was saying, perhaps if Commander Shepard were to make an announcement to the crew, it would relieve some of the tension. Everyone aboard carries a great deal of respect for her opinion."

"Unfortunately, the commander can't just order everyone to like each other," Garrus said. "The humans are bound to obey her, but orders won't change minds, nor will they affect the rest of us. We need something else."

Shepard cocked her head to one side, a distinctive - or rather, distinctively copied - gesture that drew a badly stifled snicker from Ashley. "You sound like you've got an idea, Garrus. Care to share it?"

"In the past, military units of all species have relied on unique symbols and colors to generate a sense of unit cohesion," the turian continued. "Perhaps we should devise a similar scheme, either a distinctive dress or some insignia applied to the ship."

"Nice idea, but I'm not sure what you propose to change," Shepard replied. "There's nothing to be done for the uniform regulations, and I don't imagine you all want to wear working blues every day. And painting the _Normandy_ is out - the best thing that could happen is we'll lose stealth capability."

_"I second that,"_ Joker added over the speakers. _"Nobody's laying a hand on my baby."_

"What about the Mako?" All eyes swiveled toward Tali. The quarian machinist so rarely spoke at team briefings, most of them neglected to notice that she even attended. "It has no stealth systems that would be affected, and - with respect, Commander - a bit of customization might improve its combat abilities."

"It's not a half bad idea, ma'am," Ashley said. "Marine units do nose art and such on their vehicles all the time. I think as long as the decoration doesn't mess up the vehicle's function or represent something offensive, the regs are cool with it."

"Then the Mako it shall be," Shepard replied. "Garrus, since you maintain it and it was your idea, I'll let you pick a design."

"Thank you, Commander," Garrus replied, his mandibles flexing in the turian version of a smile. "I already have a few ideas. It will be a great representation of all we stand for."

* * *

Two weeks later, the team stood in the equipment bay, facing a vaguely Mako-shaped bulk covered in protective sheeting. The unveiling would be a surprise for all, as none of them save Garrus had seen the customization project in progress. The turian had interviewed the crew for suggestions and then set to work alone, even building a scaffold around the rover to hide his project from curious eyes.

"As you know, at the last team briefing, we decided that it might be a good morale boost for the crew to have a distinctive unit design for our equipment," Shepard said. "We decided to implement that design on the Mako. Garrus designed and executed the project for us, so I'll turn the deck over to him."

"Thank you, Commander," Garrus replied. With a dramatic flourish, he yanked the cover away from the vehicle. "Ladies, gentlemen and others, I give you the M-35 Mako, _Normandy_ Edition."

The only sound in the cavernous bay was the rustle of the tarp hitting the deck.

Garrus, by now practically bursting with enthusiasm, continued speaking as he began to pace around the rover. "My design incorporates elements from all the species represented in the _Normandy's_ crew. The color scheme is based on the traditional dress of the asari commandos. The decorative elements on the wheels represent my people's six martial spirits - Honor, Duty, Courage, Loyalty, Strength and Discipline. As you may have noticed, they are designed to remain upright at all times, just as a warrior remains upright. I placed a badge representing the Systems Alliance on the hood, signifying the human military's lead role in our operations. The turret cover is a krogan clan shield, and the drive systems include audible cues common to quarian design."

"I also took the opportunity to make a few functional changes. Since we've had trouble in the past with attackers charging under our guns, I removed the coaxial machine-gun mount from the turret and replaced it with a pair of such weapons, mounted in the front fender assembly. The new roof material is designed to absorb and neutralize chemical and biological weapons, such as thresher maw saliva. Finally, I added independent controls to the jump jets. The driver can lift or drop any wheel as needed, which should smooth out the ride on difficult terrain."

Shepard blinked once, twice.

"It is... unique," Liara said, obviously trying to be as diplomatic as possible.

"Oh sweet Jesus, tell me I'm hallucinating," Ashley muttered.

Wrex burst into a rumble of laughter. "I have to hand it to ya, Vakarian. That's got to be the best practical joke I've ever seen."

The Mako had been painted royal purple, with a cream-colored quilted material covering the roof. A pair of conical covers hid the front machine guns, causing the front fender to protrude in a suggestive pattern. A large gold delta and stars comprised the hood ornament, and the turret sported a matching tribal-looking gold shield. Straight chrome exhaust pipes ran from the vehicle's engine compartment to its tail. Six gold-plated, independently spinning wheel rims completed the ensemble.

_"Holy shit, Garrus,"_ Joker said over the comm. _"I never thought I'd see a Mako pimpmobile."_

* * *

Author's Notes: Poor Garrus. He'll never live this one down. (Of course, he didn't set out to create a pimpmobile - he genuinely thought the new design would be culturally sensitive and tactically useful. It just so happened that all his design elements combined into a disastrous whole.)

Per Impsy's request, Joker will be coming up right after the next piece. Thanks to everyone who reviewed so far!


	4. 37 C

4. 37 C

_In which Shepard finds a cure for the cold._

* * *

When Jane Shepard awakened, the first thing she recognized was warmth.

Aboard an Alliance naval vessel, the absolute zero of space lay only a few meters away at any time, and the ship's interior felt little warmer. The massive heatsinks, radiative stripes and liquid metal venting systems, designed to dissipate a ship's wartime heat load, always operated at full capacity, driving the crew areas' temperature deep into the teens during normal cruising.

Shepard, who still craved the warmth of Mindoir's savannas, had always endured the cold as best she could – which was to say, not well at all.

The worst of it was always at night. During the waking hours, she could rely on forced movement and a uniform sweater to keep warm, but within her sleeper pod's confines, nothing but a thin sheet separated her from the bone-numbing chill. In all her years of service, she could never remember experiencing a decent night's rest aboard ship, suffering through the hours with her muscles spasming to tetany and her jaw clenched to stop her chattering teeth.

(Shepard wondered sometimes, as she drifted in the void between sleep and sleeplessness, if the chronic insomnia so common among servicepeople really stemmed from combat stress, or rather from the constant cold.)

Desperate for escape from the icy atmosphere, she had made a career trademark of volunteering for practically every shore mission the Alliance could dream up. Deserts, jungles and volcanic plains all drew the Shepard seal of approval, and she spent days exploring each, turning over every odd rock, investigating every radar anomaly. The mining rights alone would net millions to her and whatever descendants she might beget, but the minerals, abandoned spacecraft and Prothean ruins she discovered all signified next to nothing against the chance to catch a nap under a baking sun. On ice worlds, though, she all but refused to leave the Mako, and then only bundled in a thick layer of Devlon's finest.

(Shepard awakened lathered in cold sweat, catapulted from frigid to frozen as the howling north winds of Akuze merged into the refrigerated chill of her cabin. In those moments, she understood the dying wish of Sam McGee, whose only instant of warmth in the Alaskan tundra had come from his own crematorium.)

So, when she floated up from her first sound sleep in twelve years and found her body drenched in heat, her first impulse was to seek out the source.

It wasn't hard to find. A head was nestled against her left shoulder, warm breath rhythmically ghosting along her collarbones, and a pair of arms wrapped securely around her torso, molding the soft, delicately contoured body to the length of her own. Apparently her companion had also taken a chill in the night, or simply desired the comfort of a warm embrace. She reflected on the cosmic twist of fate that would have her sharing a bed, a heart, a life, with the one person on the _Normandy_ who tolerated cold even more poorly than she.

(Shepard remembered jouncing away from the ruin of Peak 15, cobalt blood on her hands and tears frozen behind her eyes. Their armored hardsuits transmitted practically no body heat to the surface, but that didn't stop them huddling in the back of the Mako, each convinced they would never be warm again.)

Her companion stirred, nuzzling sleepily into her neck, and the familiar voice whispered to the back of her mind. _Go back to sleep, love. The cold will only come in if we let it._

With a slight smile, Shepard closed her eyes, basking in the promise of warmer days to come.

* * *

Author's Notes: After three chapters of comedy, I had to get the fluff bug out of my system. :) I wrote this with Shepard/Liara in mind, though it's ambiguous enough that you can imagine almost anyone in the scene.

"The Cremation of Sam McGee" is a poem by Robert Service, which takes place in the Klondike during Alaska's gold rush. Dying of hypothermia, Sam McGee extracts a promise from his trail buddy to cremate him upon his death. The other man does, only to find Sam apparently alive and quite warm inside the blazing oven.

The laughs will return next chapter with Impsy's Joker request. Thanks to all for your kind comments and suggestions!

_(Edited 6/30: verb tense problems. Thanks to Impsy for the catch.)_


	5. The Shadow Knows

5. The Shadow Knows

_In which Joker's second job raises a few eyebrows - and tempers. _

* * *

_"Commander, incoming transmission,"_ Joker said over the bridge intercom as Shepard stood at the _Normandy's_ conn. _"I think you'll want to hear this. Patching it through."_

"As if I didn't have enough of a migraine today," the Spectre muttered. Clearing her throat, she continued, "This is Commander Shepard. What can I do for you?"

_"That should be, what can we do for each other, Shepard,"_ an inflectionless, digitally scrambled voice replied. _"You know me as the Shadow Broker."_

"This is an unexpected pleasure," Shepard said, lying through her teeth. "I must really be top of the heap if you're calling me in person."

_"It has come to my attention that you recently came across a Cerberus cell in the Voyager Cluster,"_ the Shadow Broker replied. _"Pity you let the commander go, but at least the hostages were saved. Tell me, do you wish you had a chance to finish the job?"  
_

Shepard put one hand to her head, rubbing at her temples in an effort to stave off her growing headache. "If you've got something to say, say it. Otherwise, call someone else."

_"I have a client who wishes to see Greene and his crew of butchers eliminated. You know where they went. If you chose to share that information, I would see to it that you were well compensated."_

"I can't do that," Shepard said. "Greene will get his, but it'll be in a court of law, not through a vigilante operation."

_"But surely you don't trust that the Council will actually try the case. They'll make their back room deals, and the Cerberus men will be quietly set free. Can't air out the Alliance's secret shame, after all. Unless you sell me the information, in which case you could guarantee they'd be properly dealt with."_

"No deal. I told your agent once before, and I'll tell you now: I won't sell out the Alliance or the Council for your little schemes."

The Shadow Broker's voice remained as flat as ever. _"That's a pity, Commander. I will remember--"_ With a burst of static, the encryption system quit, leaving the broadcast in the clear. Shepard roared in surprise and anger as she recognized the information trader's true voice.

"JOKER!"

"Uh, yeah, about that," Joker said, a sickly smile on his face as Shepard stormed toward the helm stations. "I was going to... Oh my God! Commander, there's a Reaper right behind you!"

The Spectre spun around, looking for the nonexistent mechanical menace, and Joker ran for it, leaping from his chair and heading toward the bridge doors at top speed. Unfortunately, his embrittled legs chose the wrong moment to shatter, depositing the hapless pilot in a quivering heap on the deck.

With a grimace of pain, he muttered, "Well, this could start to suck."

* * *

"You're a lucky man, Joker," Dr. Chakwas said as she finished setting the high-strength medigel around Joker's left shin. "The tibia only broke in five places this time. One more and I'd have had to pin it surgically. Once the regeneratives kick in, though, you should be back to normal in a day's time or so."

"Good," Shepard said, leaning against the bulkhead, as the rest of the team gathered in the _Normandy's _sickbay. Fury flickered in her eyes as she stared at the man on the bed. "Now that we've established that you won't die in the next ten minutes, Lieutenant, I think you have some explaining to do."

Joker swallowed hard at the commander's tone and choice of words. Shepard never addressed her crew by rank unless she was superlatively angry. Taking a deep breath, he began, "Well, first off, I'm not the original Shadow Broker. He retired to Patavig ages ago – built a palace on the beach and he's been living the high life ever since. See, nobody ever knows what the Shadow Broker looks, sounds or acts like, so anyone can be the Shadow Broker. When a Broker decides they've had it with the gig, they pick a replacement, and that new person becomes the next Broker. I'm either seventh or eighth in line; the hanar I inherited the title from wasn't so sharp on the details, and I couldn't keep track of all the 'this one' and 'that one' business."

In a voice dripping skepticism, Shepard queried, "So how'd you get to be the Shadow Broker? I'm guessing the previous one didn't just pull your name from a hat."

"Well, it all started when Kaidan asked me to find him some... uh, recreational material. I guess he'd had his extranet access locked for hitting one too many asari fetish sites. Anyway, I put in a call to Fist. I traded our assignment log for Kaidan's goods..."

"I'm gonna puke," Ashley growled. "You sold us out for _porno_?"

"Hey, don't knock it till you've seen it," Joker countered. "This one vid, a three-way with a matriarch, a human and a turian? Let me tell you, she had ta-tas out to the Arcturus Relay, and when the turian brought out the feather duster..."

Liara flushed a spectacular shade of indigo, her biotics flaring to match. Garrus laid a hand on her shoulder to restrain her.

"...Anyway, I guess the log was valuable enough that the Broker didn't feel right just giving me what I'd asked for, so it called me personally and offered me a role as one of its agents. By a few months later, I was top dog. You wouldn't believe the number of people that wanted to keep tabs on us - everything from mercenary outfits to civilian fans. There was this one guy who offered me ten grand - he said his wife wanted a pair of your old--"

Her migraine growing exponentially worse with every word, Shepard muttered, "Somehow, I just don't want to know."

"--It was a hell of a business. I was always careful with the details, just enough to keep the buyers happy, but never anything that would really compromise our missions. When the Broker decided it wanted to retire, it passed the job on to me. I've been at it for about a month now."

"And all this time, we thought you were just a nice guy with hotshot flying skills and a nose for gossip," Ashley ground out. "So what else have you sold of ours, huh? Service records? Naked holographs?"

Under her breath, Liara muttered to the Marine, "If that ends up being true, I will gladly Lift him while you beat him."

"Of course, this leaves me with a hell of a problem," Shepard said, beginning to pace the deck. "What you've been doing falls squarely into the Military Code's definitions of espionage and treason. You'll be lucky if the court-martial lets you choose between a needle at midnight or slugs at dawn. And that's assuming that I don't decide to apply Spectre's justice right here."

Joker turned even pastier at that. "You wouldn't! I mean, you don't do vigilante stuff... right?"

Shepard snapped back, "Right now, I'm sorely tempted to make an exception."

"I'll thank you not to kill anyone in my sickbay, Commander," Dr. Chakwas said acerbically. "Tends to cause panic among the patients. I can't imagine why."

"Oh, don't worry, Doc, we won't kill him," Ashley replied, cracking her knuckles. "Though he might be wishin' we would by the time we get through."

"Secure that chatter, all of you!" Shepard shouted.

"Commander, if I may?" Garrus said quietly, looking at Shepard with his usual thoughtful expression. Wearily, she sighed, "This better be good."

"I think Mr. Moreau here may be worth more alive than dead," Garrus said. "Having the intelligence-management resources of the Shadow Broker at our disposal would be an unimaginable advantage. Slavers, pirates, geth, Cerberus - he's got his fingers on all their pulses. He could plant disinformation, call favors, influence politics. And we'd control it all."

Joker, never one to miss a trick, leaped at the turian's lifeline. "Of course! Any information you want, I can get. I'll be the best intel agent you ever had, I swear!"

Shepard frowned at that, folding her arms over her chest. "I see your point, but Joker admitted to treason - admitted that he's made a business of it, in fact. He could sell us out again at any time, and I don't need to remind you of the consequences if word of our activities gets back to the wrong people. If I'm going to let him off, I need something more than his promise that he'll be a good boy."

"Then you'll have my promise as well," Garrus replied. "I'll take responsibility for Mr. Moreau, Commander. I used to turn informants all the time at C-Sec. I know exactly how to handle his kind."

"Uh, that's another thing. You see, I might have to ask for financial consideration in some cases. Information isn't free, you know. I'll cut you top bargains, though--"

"No, you'll be doing this _pro bono_," Shepard cut him off. "Unless, of course, you'd rather take your chances with the court-martial."

Realizing he was beaten, Joker nodded in agreement. "Oh, no problem, Commander. My allegiance is to the Alliance first, after all. I owe you my life. Thank you."

"Don't look at me," Shepard said, disgust in her voice. "It's Garrus you owe your life to. I think you'd better be real careful to stay in his good graces."

"I will, believe me." With a shifty look, the pilot continued in a softer tone, "Besides, uh, if you're interested, I just got into some great new stuff - turian/quarian hard--"

"Hard to know just how fragile your bones are unless you've broken every one, isn't it?" Garrus interrupted, his mandibles flexing ominously.

Joker raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, this is me shutting up."

* * *

Author's Notes: You always wondered just how Joker knew what everyone in the galaxy was up to...

The idea of a rotating Shadow Broker isn't inspired by so much as lifted wholesale from _The Princess Bride_'s Dread Pirate Roberts, though it's somewhat justified since Barla Von floats a similar idea in-game. Kaidan's interesting taste in adult entertainment comes from his reactions to the asari dancers at Chora's Den ("Uh, LT? You might wanna put your tongue back before you trip on it") and Qui'in's description of Benezia's arrival on Noveria ("Sounds like something from an extranet fetish site"). The customer who allegedly wanted Shepard's old stuff for his wife was, of course, Conrad Verner. (Given what a pervert he was in the game, one can only imagine what he might have asked for.)

Thanks to everyone who's reviewed and suggested so far!


	6. The Mess Hall at the End of the Universe

6. The Mess Hall at the End of the Universe

_In which Ashley and Liara talk about life, the universe and everything._

* * *

"Well, forget 'start to,' this officially sucks," Ashley muttered to herself as she dropped the barrel back into Wrex's Kovalyov assault rifle and applied lubricant to the locking lugs. "Oh-dark-thirty and I'm cleaning guns. God, I hate garrison insomnia."

The _Normandy_ had traveled to Proteus, an ocean world in the Artemis Tau cluster, in response to a distress call from the colony located beneath the planet's stormy seas. As the mission would involve nothing more than repairing some malfunctioning life support equipment, Commander Shepard had opted to take an all-technical team to the planet's surface, leaving behind her usual balanced squad design. That didn't sit well with Ashley at all, who could never quite shake the fear that the ground squad would run into some life-threatening trouble and not have the firepower to extricate themselves from it. As a result, she whiled away the hours by taking extra shifts or compulsively cleaning the team's weapons, any activity that would distract her from the sleep-robbing conviction that her friends were in danger and she was powerless to defend them.

_Just like you couldn't defend your platoon on Eden Prime, or Kaidan on Virmire... _

_This maudlin crap isn't helping,_ she thought forcefully, setting aside her bore scope and replacing the various solvents and lubricants in their drawers in the workbench. _Maybe I'll grab a snack, see if that doesn't settle me enough to sleep._

Not paying particular attention to her surroundings, the Marine took the elevator to the habitation deck and trudged toward the mess hall - and ran smack into Liara, who had been approaching from the opposite direction. Ashley managed to keep her footing, but the much smaller asari wasn't so lucky, tumbling to the deck in a tangle of limbs.

"Aw, shit, Li, I'm sorry," Ashley apologized, offering Liara a hand up. "I wasn't paying attention. Didn't see you coming."

"The fault is just as much mine," Liara replied. "I was not paying attention either, or else I would have dodged."

The two women looked at each other, and then broke into simultaneous laughter. "I just got off watch, thought I'd snag a quick midrat before hitting the rack," Ashley said a bit too cheerfully, jerking a thumb toward the sleeper pods. "Wanna join me?"

"I'd be happy to, but I must ask how you 'just got off watch,' since first watch ended nearly an hour ago and you usually stand the dog watch."

"Busted." With a self-deprecating sigh, Ashley admitted, "Can't sleep. I never sleep well when we deploy a ground team and I'm not on it. I know the Commander had to take the geek squad to fix that atmospheric recycler, and I know Garrus and Tali can take care of business, but still..."

"I, too, have been unable to sleep, and for similar reasons, though it does not help that you keep your ship so accursedly cold," Liara murmured dejectedly.

Ashley chuckled a bit at that, as they pulled facing chairs out from the single long table. A plate of sandwiches occupied the middle of the table, and she unwrapped one and bit into it. "Missing your teddy bear, huh?"

"A bear?" the asari scientist echoed, confused. "Isn't that a large species of carnivore?"

"Whaaat...? Oh, I get it. No, a teddy bear isn't a real bear. It's a little kid's stuffed toy, usually made up to look like a cute version of some animal," Ashley explained. "The original looked like a bear, but they come in all kinds. Anyway, practically every kid has one, and when you're little, you usually fall asleep with it. Gives you something to hold onto."

"I see. Our children have similar comfort objects – traditionally either a toy or a small blanket. However, it is expected that the child will sleep alone by age ten or so."

"Right on all counts," Ashley confirmed. "Older kids and adults generally don't sleep with actual teddy bears – though I could tell you a great story about this one Ops Chief on Czarnobog – but if you're used to having someone else with you at bedtime and then all of a sudden you don't... well, you get the idea."

Liara said nothing, but the ultramarine tint rising along her cheekbones spoke volumes.

"Anyway, I can think of something that might help." The Marine stood and walked over to the beverage dispenser, returning a few moments later with a cup of hot water and a tea bag. "Chamomile tea. My Nana always used to give us this when we were little and couldn't sleep. Works like a charm."

"Thank you." Liara took the cup, and then sniffed at it inquisitively. "This is _Matricaria recutita_, is it not?"

"If that's egghead-speak for chamomile, then yeah."

"Then please do not be offended if I do not drink the entire cup," Liara said, with an apologetic smile. "That particular herb affects asari neurochemistry quite a bit more than it does a human's. Half this amount would suffice to render me nearly unconscious."

Ashley replied with a good-natured chuckle. "Yeah, I'm startin' to think you're just a lightweight," she teased. "Seems like everything knocks you out."

"And I am beginning to think that you just like to see me intoxicated, as you keep pressing me to consume substances my body can't handle," Liara retorted, which only made her friend laugh harder. "And in any case, I am no such thing. I weigh 60 kilograms; that's quite enough for someone of my stature."

Ashley lost it, leaning over the table as she shook with helpless guffaws. Where in the past she might have dismissed Liara's occasionally stilted command of Standard and lack of social grace as overly pedantic, emotionless or just plain alien, she had begun to see that the asari actually had a devastatingly dry sense of humor.

"So what was yours?" the Marine said, once she had regained some semblance of composure.

"Excuse me?"

"Your stuffed animal. Sorry, _comfort object._ Sure you must've had one."

"I... you must promise not to laugh." Off Ashley's suddenly serious expression, she took a sip of tea before continuing. "It was an athamara. A 'small goddess,' if you will forgive the inexact translation. In asari mythology, athamare are tiny flying creatures that inhabit woodlands and waterways, and they are said to grant wishes if you see one."

Ashley grinned as she did the mental comparison, but true to her promise, did not laugh. "Humans have almost the same myth. We call 'em fairies."

"When I was very young, I used to pretend that I _was_ one... that I had a pair of wings only I could see, and that if I closed my eyes and leaped into the air, I could fly wherever I pleased. Of course, I learned very quickly that while we can do many things with the mind, flight is not one of them."

"Let me guess: jumped out of a tree?"

"No, the roof of our garden shed." Liara looked at the table, speaking almost inaudibly. "I am sure you must think me to be very childish."

"Nah, actually, I think it's cute," the Marine replied, gesturing with one half of her sandwich. "Besides, it kinda makes sense. Most kids, you leave 'em alone for enough time and they come up with all kinds of fantasy on their own. Imaginary friends, imaginary worlds, imaginary super powers, you know. By all accounts, your mom wasn't around a lot when you were little, and I bet the other kids didn't want to play with you much, she being kind of a bigwig and you being a p... aw, hell, me and my big mouth--"

"I know you meant no offense. In any case, I believe your aphorism says 'It is not slander if it is true," Liara interrupted quietly, though her lopsided half-smile held more than a bit of old hurt. "And you are correct in your presumption. Young asari can be just as... inconsiderate as children of any other species. I was shy, bookish, and to be pureblood on top of that..."

"Yeah. That's one way growing up a Marine brat was a blessing and a curse," Ashley said. "Nobody could afford to be a jerk because there just wasn't enough time - you can't build up a gang or have a cool crowd with everyone gettin' transferred all the time. Besides, if someone did cause you trouble, you only had to put up with them for that long before your mom or dad's next transfer, and then you'd never see 'em again. Flipside of that, of course, was that you couldn't have a best friend or a crowd because you never knew when or where the next set of orders would take you. That's part of why military families are usually both big and tight-knit. Can't have friends, all you've got's your family."

"Hmm," Liara noised, sipping her tea. "Asari families are the exact opposite. We rarely exceed two children, and even when someone does have a larger family, the children are usually half-sisters, each the product of a different joining. Probably sixty percent, maybe seventy these days, are single-mother families as well. Given the timespan of an asari childhood, and spending all that time in perpetual close contact with one or maybe two other people... I suppose it is no shock that we tend to either adore our families or despise them."

"I get what you're saying. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all sweetness and joy at home - God, you should have seen the throwdown when Dad got ordered to the Verge three weeks before my junior prom - but when push came to shove, we always stood up for each other. I told the Skipper once, I don't know if she told you the story or not, but my littlest sister was having guy trouble and I took a week's leave to walk her to and from school. I didn't even think about it; as soon as I got the vid-mail, I went straight to my company chief and requested the time. And I know any of my sisters would do the same for me in a second."

"It sounds wonderful. Despite all the hardships of military life, to have such a large group to support you..."

Ashley nodded in agreement. "Yeah. As tough as it was, I wouldn't have traded it for anything."

Liara sat silently for several seconds, a wistful expression slowly spreading across her face. "Please forgive me, as I suspect I'm about to make a fool of myself - but since coming aboard the _Normandy,_ I think I have learned something of what you described. None of you are related or even the same species as me... and yet somehow you have all become family to me, much more than Benezia ever was."

Ashley blinked a few times, deeply touched by the declaration. "Yeah, well, we all love you too," she said, and her smile was wide and genuine. "Even if Chakwas did have kittens over you taking over her lab space."

"That's something I have long meant to ask you," Liara said with a smirk. "Tell me, do very many humans speak in a nonstop string of incomprehensible idioms, or is that your personal idiosyncrasy?"

"Yeah, I guess we kinda do do that," the Marine replied, laughing. "Some more than others. I like to think it's the mark of a poetic soul - regular language doesn't do it for you, so you've gotta make up your own words and descriptions for things."

"In other words, it _is _only you who speaks so."

"Busted again. Besides, if it makes you feel any better, Garrus doesn't get slang either. Did you see the last time he tried to talk to Joker? I didn't know who was gonna pop a vessel first..."

No answer.

"Liara? Still with me?"

The asari had fallen asleep sitting up, her breathing slow, even and not quite loud enough to be charitably called a snore.

"Good thing you _are_ lightweight," Ashley grumbled affectionately, picking Liara up and carefully carrying her back to her bunk in the sick bay. An extra blanket lay neatly folded at the foot of the bed, and she tucked it around the slumbering asari with gentle movements, just as she had done for each of her sisters years before. On an impulse, she ducked out of the compartment and down the passageway to the CO's quarters, retrieving a large, bulky object from within. Returning moments later with her prize, she placed it under the covers within easy grasp, and grinned when Liara immediately reached for it, her head nestled against one corner much as one might do with another person's shoulder.

On the whole, Ashley thought, Shepard's pillow made a pretty good field-expedient teddy bear.

"G'night, Fairy Queen," she whispered, closing the hatch behind her.

* * *

Author's Notes: Title credit goes, of course, to Douglas Adams.

Naval watches are kept ("stood") as follows: first watch, 2000-0000 hours (8 PM to midnight); midwatch, 0000-0400; morning watch, 0400-0800; forenoon watch, 0800-1200; afternoon watch, 1200-1600 (noon-4 PM); dog watch, 1600-2000 (4 PM-8 PM, frequently split into first dog and second dog, two hours each). "Oh-dark-thirty" is military slang for any sufficiently late (or early) hour, though if you really want to be picky, it's usually 0030 hours, or 12:30 AM in civilian time. Messes are served four times a day: morning, noon, evening and a late snack for night watchstanders, called "midrats" or midnight rations.

The Pimp Mako will return in the next chapter, as Sharem requested. Thank you all for reading!


	7. Pimpin' All Over The Galaxy

7. Pimpin' All Over The Galaxy

_In which the Normandy's crew kills several monsters and unwittingly creates hundreds more._

* * *

The cabin intercom chirped twice, waking Shepard out of a deep, dreamless sleep. Very carefully, so as not to disturb the individual snuggled contentedly against her shoulder, she reached for the intercom key and tapped it. In a whisper, she grumbled, "Shepard here. This better be good."

Joker's voice followed a second later. _"Commander? We just picked up priority traffic from COMFIFTHFLT. It's pre-recorded, but it's coded Flash Red. Do you want it now or should I send it to your queue?"_

"Pre-ree Flash Red? Probably Hackett's just waving his d--" Shepard muttered, catching herself before she said something overly salty. The Alliance maintained two levels of flash messages, Red and Blue; Flash Blue was reserved for such catastrophes as invasions and other acts of war, while Red traffic comprised everything else too urgent to go through normal channels. However, any message important enough to deserve a Flash Red designation usually also merited a real-time call, rather than trusting the _Normandy_'s route to cross an Alliance repeater buoy in time to pick up the message. The use of Flash Red for a pre-recorded message smacked of rear-echelon ego inflation - though Shepard preferred the much more descriptive Earth phrase.

"Go ahead, patch it through," she said. Spectre or not, a commander only ignored Flash traffic at her considerable peril. _With any luck, I'll be able to listen to this thing and we can go back to sleep._

_"Aye, aye, ma'am."_ The comm system beeped, and Hackett's voice crackled forth from the speaker. _"Shepard, we've got a situation in the Fortuna System. __A corporate mining crew on Amaranthine ran into a thresher maw infestation, the likes of which we've never seen. Reports say there are over a dozen known nests, and there could be more. There's a Marine unit planetside, but they're completely inexperienced in dealing with threshers, and they've already taken some casualties. I know we've asked a lot of you and your crew, but if it's possible, we'd appreciate your going to advise their operations. Fifth Fleet out."_

"And there went that idea," the Spectre groaned. "Joker, lay in a course for Amaranthine. We're going thresher maw hunting."

* * *

Six hours later, the _Normandy_ settled into orbit around Amaranthine, while Shepard, Garrus and Ashley rode the Mako down to the planet's surface.

As the vehicle approached the encampment, Shepard jumped through the Mako's upper hatch and walked up to the highest-ranked man she could see. "Commander Shepard, SSV _Normandy._ Which of you is the CO?"

"I am. Staff Lieutenant Matthew Hansen, Bravo Company, 311th Infantry, ma'am," the Marine said, saluting crisply, which the Spectre returned with equal aplomb.

"How are you holding up, Lieutenant?" Shepard asked, surveying the encampment with a practiced eye. "Speak freely."

Lieutenant Hansen paused for a second, as though weighing his words. "Officially, we're holding our own and fully expect to prevail against the xenological threat through superior tactics and firepower. Unofficially... God, are we glad to see you. The damn things - begging your pardon, ma'am - pop right up under you, and it practically takes a whole slug block to kill one. We've been planetside for a week now, and it's threshers seven, humans one." With a sigh, the man continued, "But here's the thing. We're Marines; we all knew what we were in for when we took the oath. Those poor bastards ExoGeni's got working the mines... they're _civilians,_ ma'am. They didn't sign on for this shit, and yet the company still makes 'em go out every day, untrained, unarmed and unescorted, where they know it's better than even chance that they won't come back. Frankly, if it was me down there, I'd tell them to keep their money. No paycheck is worth that kind of ugly."

Shepard, who knew the thresher maw's particular brand of ugly better than most and bore the scars to prove it, simply nodded.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. You didn't come out here to listen to my bitching. My men and I are ready to go - we're a little tired, a little ragged, but we're just dying for some payback. Just tell us how to kill the things, and we'll handle the rest."

"That, at least, we can fix," Shepard replied. "I'm going to call for some intel from orbit. Get your men together for a briefing in ten."

Ten minutes later, Shepard stood before the assembled Marine garrison, all two hundred and forty-three men and women standing smartly at attention despite their injuries and fatigue. "At ease, people," Shepard said, folding her hands behind her back. "You know why we're all here, and you know why I'm here, so I'll make this as brief as possible. Air-to-ground radar survey from the _Normandy_ has located a grand total of fifteen thresher maw nests, each positioned near a prime ore deposit. Obviously they can't be left there, so it's up to us to take them out. I've been told that you haven't had any experience dealing with threshers before, so I'm here to show you exactly what's required to bring one of these beasts down."

Pausing for emphasis, she continued, "There are three basic rules for successfully taking down a thresher maw. One, never stop moving. I'll say it again: never stop moving. You stop, either the beast comes up underneath you or it hawks an acid loogie at you, and we'll only have a neatly folded flag to give your next of kin, because there won't be enough left of you to box up and send home. Two, the edge of the nest is a much better killzone than anywhere in the nest itself. It's high ground, and the thresher can't reach it with surface attacks or infrasound, so it has to stay surfaced and spit at you - and you can shoot a hell of a lot faster than it can. Three, armored cavalry is your friend. The anti-materiel cannon on a Mako is far more powerful than anything man-portable, and the vehicle itself offers much better mobility than a man on foot. Our Mako, which you can see behind me, has been specially hardened against thresher attacks, but the stock Mako will work just as well. Any questions?"

Shepard frowned as silence greeted her.

"I said, are there any questions?" she repeated, this time lacing the words with an edge of command.

She might as well have not spoken at all, for all the attention the Marines paid her. Every man and woman in the garrison stood frozen, gaping in slack-jawed awe at the vehicle that had rumbled up behind the Spectre.

"Attention! Eyes forward! Officer on deck! I know you can hear me...!"

"Shee-it, man, that is the most ghetto ride I've ever seen," one PFC whispered.

A moment later, the entire garrison erupted in howls of laughter.

Shepard just groaned, wincing as the beginnings of a headache pulsed just under her temples. "Garrus, so help me, I'm half a second away from kicking your scrawny turian ass up between your shoulder blades..."

* * *

"Permission to speak freely, ma'am?" Hansen asked, as their respective squads camped at the very edge of a large thresher nest, waiting for the Mako to arrive in position. Their plan was simple: use the Mako to lure the thresher to the surface, relying on the vehicle's speed and mobility to keep it out of harm's way, while Shepard and Hansen's squads engaged the thresher from the rim of the nest on foot.

Off Shepard's affirmative nod, the Marine lieutenant queried, "D'ya think it was really such a good idea to let the non-humans in your team hack your Mako like that?"

"Your opinion is as good as mine, Hansen," Shepard replied with a lopsided smile. "I can tell you that we went over the mods with a fine-tooth comb, and the modified layout has passed a good two dozen shipboard sims with flying colors. That said, this is the _Normandy_ Mako's first combat run, so if it fails, we'll be the first to find out."

"That's good, ma'am, but what I really meant was that you've got aliens messing with equipment that human lives are riding on. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm no xenophobe, but I can't help but wonder if we maybe ought to hold them a little more at arm's length. You know, wait to see if they have a penchant for back-stabbing before we hand them a knife."

Shepard turned toward the Marine, locking eyes with him. "I can tell you that if any of my crew had ever wanted to kill me or make either me or humans at large into a galactic laughingstock, they've certainly had ample opportunity, and God only knows a few of them would have good motives. One mission, I had to order my, uh... best friend to fight and kill her own mother. On another, I had to explain to my krogan squad leader that we had to destroy a potential cure for the genophage, without which his people will be extinct in a century or so. Garrus - the turian who did the Mako mods - was basically disowned because he chose to fight alongside us. Yet they've all stood by us - us humans, and all the other sentient creatures of the universe - even when it cost them personally and as a species to do so. Those kinds of people, I would - and do - trust with my life, regardless of what species they are."

Hansen nodded slowly. "I see your point, ma'am. And speaking of the devil, here comes your cav now." On cue, Garrus' voice crackled across the squad commlink, _"Mako in position. Ready to proceed on your order."_

"It's your show, Garrus," Shepard said into the commlink.

As the Mako approached the edge of the nest, it slowed to a leisurely cruise, and the jump jets began firing in synchronized intervals, causing the vehicle to bounce rhythmically across the hardpan. Adding to the acoustic assault, the "quarian aural cues" growling from the Mako's straight-pipe exhaust system created a racket more suited to a 20th-century street cruiser than a modern, fuel-cell-powered military vehicle.

The temptation apparently was too much for any self-respecting thresher maw to ignore, as the beast rose from the earth with an otherworldly shriek. Even by the standards of its species, the thresher was enormous, well over fifty meters high. Its mandibles twitched angrily as it swung its head around to fixate on the bouncing Mako.

"Damn, that is one ugly mama," Shepard muttered. Activating the commlink, she continued, "We'll take it from here. Break off and retreat to support position."

_"Negative on that, Commander," _Garrus replied, as the Mako began orbiting the thresher, continuing its erratic movement while engaging the creature with cannon fire._ "We think we have just as good a chance staying down here and keeping the thresher off balance."_ In the background, Ashley could be heard yelling, _"Hell yeeah! Looow... annnd... slooow, baby!"_

Fear congealed into an icy ball in the pit of the Spectre's stomach. "Secure that shit and break off! That's an order! Get out of--"

Her words came a second too late, as the thresher reared back and hurled a massive glob of acidic mucus at the Mako. The material splattered all over the roof, ignoring the shields and soaking into the quilted anti-chemical "soft armor."

"They're all dead, man! Game over!" one of Shepard's Marines cried, staring at the Mako in horror.

To everyone's surprise, not the least Shepard's, the hit didn't appear to damage the Mako at all. The roof material steamed a bit where the acid had landed, but the vehicle remained unharmed.

"Let's take that thing down, people!" Shepard shouted, dodging from cover to cover as she squeezed off shots from her sniper rifle. The rest of the Marines rapidly followed suit, bathing the thresher maw in a hailstorm of rifle fire. The Mako crew, too, continued to pummel the beast with a fusillade of 155mm rounds.

As large and powerful as the thresher maw was, even it couldn't survive the hellish fire laid upon it. With a final howl it died, its gargantuan bulk slumping limply to the ground. _"Scratch one thresher maw,"_ Garrus said over the squad network, to a chorus of cheers.

"Well done," Shepard replied. "Mount up, everyone, there's plenty more where that came from."

As she stowed her Naginata and locked down the rest of her weapons for transit, she thought she heard voices in the distance, apparently coming from the second squad. Odder yet, it sounded like men chanting.

"Go G-Dawg... it's ya birthday..."

* * *

Three days later, as the ground team returned to the _Normandy_ and prepared to depart, Joker paged Shepard to the bridge again. _"Message coming in. Alliance Command decided to shell out for a long-distance call this time. Patching it through."_

_"Shepard, this is Admiral Hackett,"_ the Fifth Fleet commander's voice rasped through the speakers. _"I wanted to say job well done on that thresher maw infestation. You saved a lot of good men's lives down there."_

"Just doing my job, sir," Shepard demurred.

_"I've said this before, Commander, but I wish every soldier in my command had the same idea of 'doing their job' as you. Congratulations."_ Hackett paused for a moment._ "There was one strange event that happened right after your departure, and I hoped you might know something about it. Any idea why Logistics Command just got a request from the 311th for four cases of assorted metallic paints, a dozen amplified speaker systems and seventy-two dub wheels?"_

* * *

Author's Notes: (Oliver Hardy voice) And that's another fine mess Garrus got them into...

Title credit goes to Ludacris. Seezemaru provided the inspiration for both Ashley's line and the "hydraulic" jump jets.

Since a few people have asked, here's the story background: Jane Shepard is an Infiltrator/Commando by class, Colonist/Sole Survivor by background, and mostly a Paragon (but she's not above the occasional snarky remark). Kaidan died on Virmire. The crew will claim ignorance if you ask why Liara's teddy bear (Chapter 6) is human-sized and has a name that rhymes with "leopard."

Thanks to all who have read and reviewed!


	8. Everybody Loves Shepard

8. Everybody Loves Shepard

_In which Shepard becomes the target of sexual harassment.  
_

* * *

"So, what's on the agenda today, Skipper?" Ashley said, as she, Shepard and Liara stood in the open lobby area of the Upper Wards.

"Looks like a fairly light schedule," Shepard replied, accessing her omni-tool's journal function. "Meeting with Captain Anderson at the embassy in an hour, and before that we have to run down to Maintenance. Apparently one of the engineers needs help with the communications systems, or something like that."

"And why would they need a Spectre to deal with maintenance?" Liara asked, confused.

Shepard shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Seems like half my life is fetch and fix quests these days."

"Commander," a lyrical voice called from the Markets entrance. Shepard paused to see Sha'ira, the asari consort, flanked by two of her acolytes. "Could you spare me a moment of your time?"

"How can I help you?" Shepard replied.

"It is a matter of... nothing I can discuss in a public location," the Consort said, her voice dropping into a considerably lower tone. "Please come to my chambers in one half hour and I will discuss it with you further."

Shepard shrugged in reply. "Fine. I'll be there."

"Thank you, Commander. I promise you will find my proposal to be most rewarding."

Shepard watched the Consort depart, and then tapped her portable communicator. "Joker, call Captain Anderson and tell him I'll be a little late to that meeting," she said over the radio link. "I just ran into the Consort in the Wards. Apparently she's got some urgent task for me."

_"Roger. Bring me back a souvenir if you think of it."_

"Typical Joker," Ashley said with a smirk as the group turned and headed for the nearest Citadel Rapid Transit station. "We travel hundreds of thousands of light-years across the entire galaxy, and he wants trinkets from a high-priced wh- OW!"

"Something the matter, Chief?" Shepard asked.

"No, ma'am, I'm fine," Ashley replied, rubbing at her sore ankle. "Must've just stepped the wrong way or something."

Behind the trio, the faint gleam of a weak biotic singularity shimmered in the floor plates and then dissipated.

"Welcome, Commander Shepard," Nelyna said as they entered the front foyer of the Consort's Chambers. "Sha'ira left instructions to escort you back to her private chamber right away. Your companions may partake of refreshments here in the outer chambers while they wait."

"Alone?" Shepard queried, frowning.

"Yes, she did say it was a personal matter. Please, follow me."

As the acolyte showed her back to the Consort's chamber, Shepard self-consciously ran a gloved finger inside her hardsuit's neck seal, feeling a few drops of perspiration trickling down her temples. The room had been heated to a tropical temperature, and dishes of incense wafted fragrant smoke into the air. The combined effect was making the Spectre slightly light-headed, and she scanned the room warily, alert for possible traps.

"Please, Commander, do sit down," the Consort said, floating into the room in a cloud of silk robes and perfume. "Shall I prepare refreshment for you?"

"No thanks, I'm on duty," Shepard replied, remaining standing.

"Your people never fail to amaze me, Shepard. So strong, and yet so alone," the Consort murmured, crossing the room to stand behind Shepard and running her fingers up and down the retention bands of her weapons pack - the action putting her hands perilously close to some much more interesting parts of the Spectre's anatomy. "And you... the finest specimen of humanity I could ever imagine. Strong, wise, charismatic... so very charismatic... truly, the Council chose well."

"Uh, thank you, that's really quite kind," Shepard managed to choke out, blushing a color to match her Colossus armor, which now hung partially disassembled about her upper torso. "Was there something you wanted of me, or...?"

"No, my dear Spectre, ask what you might want of _me,_" the Consort purred. "When I encountered you last, I committed a grave error - sending you out into the cold, into the peril of war, with only a trinket and some words, when I could have given you so much more. Every day since you left, I prayed to the Goddess to preserve you, to give me another chance to... hmm... correct my error. She answered my prayer." She traced her fingers up Shepard's shoulders to her neck, caressing the sensitive skin before sweeping a path up to her cheek. "I beseech you, do not make me waste Her gift."

The penny dropped. Shepard gulped, "Madam, are you trying to seduce me?"

The Consort stared at her beneath half-lowered lids, the hunger in her gaze answering the Spectre's question. "Such a vulgar word... implying that I would force you against your will. My love is a gift, free to you... if only you would take it."

"Thanks, but I'm all set in the love department," Shepard blurted, snagging her weapons pack and bolting for the chamber door. "Er, work to be done, galaxies to save and all that! Must be going! See you around!"

Ashley and Liara exchanged thunderstruck glances as their leader came pounding out of the chambers, her hair wild, her armor falling off and her weapons pack dangling from one shoulder, accompanied by cries of "Shepard! I beg you, do not leave me! I burn with love, and only you can quench it!"

"What in the name of the Goddess was _that_ all about?" Liara demanded, as Ashley set about the business of reassembling Shepard's equipment.

"I have absolutely no idea," Shepard groaned, shaking her head and running one gloved palm over her face. "One minute she's got a task for me, next minute she's on me like thresher spit. Couldn't get her hands off."

"I bet that's not all she was trying to get off," the Marine muttered snarkily.

"Did you say something, Chief?"

"Uh, look at all she could have set off," Ashley clarified, inwardly praying that nobody would call her on the discrepancy. "The weapons pack, I mean. It'd be a disaster if some poor bystander got in the way of a negligent discharge, ha ha. Uh, ma'am, your hardsuit's all set."

"Good. Let's get out of here." As they turned to leave, Shepard muttered, "That incense stuff they've got in there smells weird anyway."

* * *

"Thanks for coming down here," the lead engineer said as he led Shepard's team deep into the bowels of the Citadel's maintenance areas. In stark contrast to the gleaming, antiseptic Presidium, this area was a maze of machinery, perfumed by ozone and grease. Hundreds of technicians - the replacements for the Reaper-enthralled keepers, which had all mysteriously perished a week after Sovereign's defeat - worked to repair, maintain and upgrade all the myriad systems that kept the Citadel running. Even Shepard, who held a fairly advanced engineering background, couldn't fathom what functions half the devices actually performed.

The engineer stopped them a few minutes later, pointing to a sparking computer console. "Here's the trouble spot," he said. "Every time we turn around, the damn thing blows another memory core. We finally figured out that the problem's in the main board, but we can't get to it without moving all the other memory cores to backup first. There are two usable backup slots, but you have to be careful to not stack a high-capacity core on top of a low-cap core, you'll blow the stack again."

"You don't have techs who can swap out a memory core?" Shepard queried skeptically, as Ashley added, "You called a Spectre down here for a five-minute repair job?"

"I didn't," the engineer said, with a blank look. "One of my team leads put in the request. I'd do it myself, but I'm up to my ears in trouble tickets already. Come find me when you're done."

The three _Normandy_ crew looked at each other, and then Shepard shrugged, a _what can you do_ gesture. "Back in a few."

Working carefully, Shepard began shifting the damaged cores back and forth, painstakingly assembling an intact stack from the remaining units. "Almost there," she whispered under her breath, delicately sliding the last core out of its slot. "One more, and--"

A pair of arms wrapped around the Spectre's shoulders, as a sudden weight nearly toppled her face-forward into the device she'd been trying to repair. Shepard reacted entirely on instinct, throwing her body backward and rolling away, which wrung a winded-sounding "oof!" from her would-be assailant. In an instant, her pistol was in her hand, trained unerringly on the attacker's head, as Ashley and Liara came running up with their own weapons drawn.

"Who are you, and what the hell was that about?" Shepard demanded, studying the girl on the floor. She wore the same issued coverall as all the Citadel maintenance staff, but her face looked vaguely familiar.

"Haven't we done this before?" the girl said in a seductive tone, lifting her hands in the air.

"Somehow, I highly doubt... wait a minute, you're the girl from X57. Bowdoin, Barnard..."

"Bowman. Kate Bowman," the maintenance tech said with a grin. "So you _do_ remember me. I knew you would."

"Right," Shepard said offhandedly, even though it had been a stretch to remember the girl's name at all, much less anything else about her. To the Spectre, Kate was just one of many, many distressed damsels she'd had to rescue over the last several months. "Was there something you needed my help with, or can I go now?"

"You know, I never learned your name," Kate said, leaning entirely too far into the Spectre's personal space. "That's _one_ way you can help me."

The machinery wasn't the only source of steam and sparks in the area, as Liara glared lasers into the back of the girl's head, her arms folded tightly over her chest and her expression somewhere between disgust and fury.

"I could have sworn I told you back then. I'm Commander Shepard, with Special Tactics and Reconnaissance." Shepard took a deliberate step back, and Kate failed to take the hint, leaning forward once more.

"No, your first name. You do have one, right?" Kate said coyly.

"It's Jane, but most of the time I just go by Commander. And I'm late for a meeting. Take care of yourself."

"Come see me again sometime, _Jane,_" Kate replied seductively, swinging her hips as she sauntered away.

"Bow-chicka-bow-wow," Ashley sing-songed under her breath.

"What was that?" Shepard said.

_Busted again, damn the luck_, Ashley thought as she fumbled for a believable recovery. "Uh, brown chicken, brown cow, ma'am. Old Earth joke. Say, did you ever hear the one about the farmer and the rabbit?"

Shepard cocked her head quizzically, but said nothing more as they left the facility.

* * *

_"In local news, residents of the Presidium have been on high alert since the discovery of an explosive device near the Consort's Chambers. The bomb, which was described as an amateur device built from a containment canister, was found and disarmed by Citadel Security officers early yesterday morning. C-Sec officials say they have not ruled out any suspects and will continue to investigate."_

"Another day, another domestic terrorist," Shepard muttered, as she, Liara and Ashley stood in the elevator leading from C-Sec to the Citadel docking bay.

"Not like C-Sec'll actually catch the guy," Ashley replied. "Those idiots couldn't find their own asses with two hands and an automap. Ten credits says we'll get stuck with the job."

Liara said nothing, humming along faintly to the elevator music.

"Good thing I'm not the betting type, or else you'd be out ten credits," Shepard said cheerfully. "Captain Anderson said they've been hearing rumors about geth in the Sentry Omega system. Stragglers from Virmire apparently. Lucky us, we get to go clean 'em out."

"Commander? Commander Shepard! Hey, it's me! You remember me, right?"

Shepard bit back a groan, as a familiar voice shouted to her. "A pleasure to see you again, Mr. Vernor," she said, lying through her teeth. "Let me guess: your wife wants to know where I get my hair cut, right?"

"Uh, no," Conrad said sheepishly. "Uh, see, she... uh... well, her attorney is calling it irreconcilable differences."

"That's too bad," Shepard said, inwardly wondering how in the galaxy she was going to keep a straight face. "Sorry for your loss."

"Oh no, it's no loss at all! Well, it was at first, but then I really got thinking, and I realized it was the best thing that could have happened! See, now that I'm single again, everything's open to me! I can go anywhere, do anything..."

"I already told you no on joining the Spectres," Shepard interjected.

"What I really meant was, will you marry me?"

That broke what little remained of Shepard's self-control, and she burst out laughing. "No. Just... no. Even if I weren't already spoken for, I'd... no. No offense, Mr. Vernor, but you're so profoundly not my type it's astounding."

"You couldn't take care of some weakling civilian, what makes you think you'll hack it with a warrior like her?" Ashley said snarkily.

"Aw, come on, hear me out!" Conrad cried, dropping to one knee and grabbing Shepard's gloved hand. "Just give me a chance--"

"Hands off, Mr. Vernor," Shepard warned.

Liara turned around very slowly, and the expression on her face immediately reminded everyone just whose daughter she was, as a biotic aura began to flicker around her form. "You are disturbing the Commander," she said in an icy tone. "Apologize immediately and maybe I will let it go."

"That's enough, everyone," Shepard said, keeping her tone light, but with just enough of an edge to warn the scientist off. "I'm sure Mr. Vernor here meant no harm. And on that note, we have other business to handle."

"Remind me never to piss you off," Ashley muttered as they walked away.

* * *

"Lovely, another geth church," Ashley whispered as she, Shepard and Tali peered over the tops of the ruined marble blocks they hid behind. This area had once housed a temple of some kind, judging by the ornate carvings still visible among the debris. Now, it featured worship of a vastly different deity, as a dozen geth knelt around one of the glowing energy orbs that formed their idols.

"In about sixty seconds they're going to be meeting their god instead of praying to it," Shepard whispered back. "Tali, get around the left flank and hack that armature. Ash, you lay down suppressing fire. I'll snipe any stragglers." Off her teammates' nods, she murmured, "Go."

Gunfire roared in Shepard's ears as Ashley opened up on the assault rifle, sending a cloud of incendiary death toward the geth worshipers. Over the racket, she faintly heard Tali's jubilant cry of "Now it gets fun!" as the armature staggered drunkenly and rounded on its brethren, scattering the group with randomly aimed blasts from the massive pulse generator built into its head.

A trio of geth managed to escape the carnage, and Shepard mentally drew an "X" on the torso of the group leader, a shock trooper. Popping out from cover, she sighted and squeezed the trigger, but the rifle jammed, its innards clicking impotently. With a string of curses, she dropped back down, switching to her pistol and snapping a Sledgehammer block into its ammunition well. "Goddamn flashlight-face sonsabitches gonna DIE," the Spectre snarled, disabling a second shock trooper with a tech mine before dumping a fusillade of rounds into the hopper leaping about behind a pillar.

"That's it, bag 'em and tag 'em," Ashley announced as the last geth whined out its death throes to the galaxy.

"And not a moment too soon. Hey, Chief, when was the last time you cleaned this rifle?" Shepard asked, disengaging the weapon from its hardpoint and examining it with a look of disgust.

"I cleaned 'em all last week, ma'am," the Marine replied. "That reminds me, did we change suppliers? 'Cause whatever new cleaner/lubricant/protectant you got is garbage - it's sticky as hell, you can hardly get a patch down the barrel. Smells weird, too. Usually CLP smells like bananas, but this stuff was really funky."

Shepard thought about asking why Ashley would have memorized the smells of gun oils, and then decided she didn't want to know. "Not that I'm aware of, but I'll check when we get back."

* * *

Back abord the _Normandy,_ Joker limped into the private corner he had squirreled away in the Engineering compartment. The space, hidden cleverly within the armor baffles, stored everything an enterprising purveyor of vice might need or want: liquor, adult entertainment, gambling materials and more. Several shelves held sealed boxes of goods, and it was to one of these that Joker maneuvered himself, lifting a small secured crate down and setting it carefully on a table.

They had finally left Sentry Omega, bound for Anansi and three days' shore leave among the bars and parlors of that trading port, and to Joker, it couldn't have come a moment too soon. As a result of the nonstop activity of the last week, he'd had no chance to get into his latest acquisition - an acquisition that, he knew, would make him a very rich man if he played it right.

_Well, playing it starts right now,_ he thought, cracking the box open and pulling a bottle marked "CLP" out of its recesses. Opening the bottle, he muttered with glee, "Guys are gonna line up to buy this stuff. A little dab, and the ladies will be all over--"

A wave of banana odor billowed into the room, strong enough to make the pilot cough and splutter.

"The hell? That doesn't smell like Consort's Love Potion..."

* * *

Author's Notes: ...Back from the dead, it's Special Effects: Original Flavor! (golf claps)

Mostly inspired by Kate Bowman's final scene in "Bring Down the Sky." I just about fell off my chair laughing when the love theme started playing over her tearful thank-you to Shepard. To make matters worse, Liara was in my party at the time, and if looks could kill, Kate might have wished for Balak's bomb instead. That mild-mannered archaeologist disguise goes out the window right quick when people make plays on her woman. ;-)

Side missions, the bread and butter of _Mass Effect_'s gameplay: right around halfway through the game, the number of side missions offered to you becomes truly astounding, and only a handful of them have anything to do with law enforcement. Shepard hangs a lampshade on it here. "Seems like half my life is fetch and fix quests..." The memory core business, of course, was a direct lift of the Towers of Hanoi-style "repair" of Mira's central core on Noveria.

Yes, gun cleaner really does smell like bananas. Seriously. (It's also pretty volatile, and will make you goofy if you use it in a space with poor ventilation. Joker's going to be seeing faces in the consoles for a little while - and sadly for him, odds are they won't be the Consort's.)

Thanks for reading!


End file.
